It’s pretty well established that racial segregation limits access to jobs, education, public services and other resources for people in high-poverty neighborhoods.

The rest of this will make sense if you realize that what is meant by “segregation” here isn’t the kind of de jure legal segregation that was legally jettisoned 53 years ago. What they mean by “segregation” in articles like these, is any large scale urban area (*) concentration of black people, esp. the black undertow.

The Urban Institute, in collaboration with the Metropolitan Planning Council, analyzed data from the 100 most populous metro areas in the 1990, 2000 and 2010 censuses and found that less segregated regions had higher average incomes and educational attainment and lower homicide rates.

Meaning that the metro areas with the least prevalent concentrations of the black undertow are metro areas where the people tend to make more money, go to school longer and murder each other less. Because, who could have ever guessed?

Regions with more segregation between blacks and whites are more economically segregated, the study found. The relationship is weaker when measuring Latino-white segregation.

“Weaker” because Latinos tend to be less obnoxious than blacks.

In regions where there is a high level of economic segregation, access to education, jobs, housing and public services is largely concentrated in the areas where high-income people live, and far away from where low-income people live.

Meanwhile, where the “low-income people” live, there is a high concentration of TV sets tuned to the station that shows the Maury Povich Show. You are NOT the father!

Any more brain busters?

Places with greater segregation between low- and high-income people also tend to have greater income inequality on the whole.

The more low-income people you have, the greater the Gini coefficient will be. That’s not a discovery, that’s math.

What does an economically segregated region look like? Take for example New York City, which tops the list. People living in affluent neighborhoods reap the benefits of good schools, low crime rates and access to public services, while those priced out of those areas may have to travel farther for access to services, work or school — if they can afford the trip at all. The result is uneven distribution of wealth, which keeps poor neighborhoods poor and limits potential spillover effects of affluence.

The whole irony is that all of this is nothing more than an advertisement for HOPE/AFFH, which will only serve to move “those priced out of those areas” even further away from all those “benefits” that “people in affluent neighborhoods reap.”

In general, however, blacks and whites tend to be more segregated from one another than Latinos and whites.

Already addressed that.

Whites tend to benefit most from high degrees of racial segregation, according to the study. They earn higher wages, complete college at higher rates and get higher-status jobs.

Not being close to the black undertow is good for white people.

When levels of segregation are high in a region, black residents tend to suffer most, the report found.

While being close to the black undertow or within the black undertow is bad for black people.

Good to know.

Higher levels of economic segregation are associated with lower median and per capita income for blacks. Additionally, higher levels of racial segregation are associated with lower incomes and lower educational attainment for blacks.

Blacks within in and part of the black undertow don’t make much money and don’t go to school that much.

Really? You don’t say.

The effects add up. Higher levels of black-white segregation are associated with lower levels of educational attainment for blacks and whites and lower levels of safety for all area residents.

Meaning that blacks within the black undertow victimize blacks within the black undertow and sometimes also leave the ghetto to victimize whites.

Using Chicago as a case study, the report’s authors argue reducing racial and economic segregation to the median level could increase black per capita income and educational attainment and lower the homicide rate.

What it will really do is to de-undertow the south side so that white liberals can live there and be close to the heart of Chicago. As far as the black people? It won’t make a difference for them.

***

All that’s really going on here is the media’s deliberately confusing use of the emotionally loaded term “segregation” to refer to any large widespread swath of underclass blacks in an urban area is designed to keep enough people politically jazzed for HOPE/AFFH or whatever it will be called when we have our next Democrat President.

(*) – The strange part is that I never seem to read the problems of “segregation” among black people in the black belt rural South. Then again, no white liberals want to take over Holmes County, Mississippi.